The background description provided here is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
Various components of a vehicle are electrically grounded by providing a ground connection between the components and a body rail of the vehicle. However, the body rail is typically covered with an electro paint operation (ELPO) coating, a regular paint coating, and/or an oxidation coating that inhibits corrosion of the body rail and inhibits the ground connection. Thus, methods have been developed to create a direct ground connection between a component and the body rail.
In one example, a stud is welded to the body rail and a nut is assembled to the stud before an ELPO coating is applied to the body rail to prevent the ELPO coating from covering the stud. Then, after the ELPO coating is applied, the nut is removed from the stud, a ground strap is placed over the stud, and the nut is reassembled to the stud to retain the ground strap on the stud. The other end of the ground strap is then attached to a stud that is welded to the component, and a nut is assembled to the component stud to secure the other end of the ground strap to the component stud.
Welding the studs to the body rail and the component and assembling/disassembling the nuts increase the amount of labor effort and time required to create the ground connection. In addition, this increase in the amount of labor effort and time, coupled with the cost of the grounding hardware, increases the cost of the vehicle. Further, in various applications, masking of joints is not feasible and/or is cost prohibitive. Therefore, a need exists to provide a direct ground connection between a vehicle component and a body rail while minimizing the labor effort, labor time, and cost associated with providing the ground connection.